Think back to when you were 14. Now imagine feeling too scared to leave your bedroom, let alone your home, and so convinced you’re ‘ugly’ and ‘fat’ that you stop eating.

What would it be like if your mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and a girl at school jeered: ‘Maybe if you had looked after your mum better, she wouldn’t have got ill’?

This was the day-to-day experience of Sophie, a 14-year-old who recently sought help from the charity I founded to help bullied children return to school.

Sophie was told the problem lay with her rather than the bully and she received no support.

In the end, her parents had to take her out of school and educate her at home — a depressingly common scenario these days.

Red Balloon founder Dr Carrie Herbert believes the pressure on schools to succeed is impacting how bullied children are treated (file image)

Sophie’s traumatic experience is concerning because it illustrates how, 22 years after my charity was set up, the problem of bullying has worsened rather than improved. And the reasons for this make uncomfortable reading.

Because schools, pressured to attain glittering results and outstanding Ofsted reports, are downplaying bullying — describing it instead as ‘friendship issues’ — in order to maintain their reputations.

It was my outrage at the fact that teachers and schools were not able to protect bullied children that made me launch my charity all those years ago.

I was an education consultant when I addressed a conference and my plea for help from headteachers in starting an ‘intensive care unit’ for bullied children was ignored.

But then, a parent contacted me, thinking I already ran such a place. Her disappointment and fear that her daughter’s bullying had got so bad that she might, just might, kill herself was enough for me to say: ‘If you bring your child to my house on Monday I will sort something out.’

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So Red Balloon was born, my charity name was chosen and soon a friend and I realised we were accidentally running a small school.

Over the past two decades we have helped more than 700 boys and girls to get back on track, with 95 per cent returning to a normal school, or going on to college, further education or an apprenticeship. Today, demand for our help has never been higher.

The fact is, you stop bullying by creating a community in which everyone feels they belong, where they are valued. And our grade-oriented society is the opposite of this.

The pressure is on at all levels: on schools to be successful, on teachers to attain good grades and pupils to work hard. It raises stress and tension in classrooms, staffrooms and at home.

Dr Herbert revealed senior staff may try to persuade a child who's being bullied to leave the school (file image)

About ten years ago when a child was bullied everyone was made aware, dealt with it and put it, if possible, behind them. These days complaints are treated differently.

Many secondary schools are now run as autonomous academies and this is part of the problem. They no longer want children who are being bullied on their roll because if the student is chronically absent as a result, they bring down attendance records and threaten results.

Our experience is that some senior staff will ‘persuade’ the bullied child’s parents that they should remove that child and home educate.

Home education is perfectly legal in this country. But maybe the parent is not in a position, financially or academically, where they can adequately teach their son or daughter and finding an alternative school is difficult.

Another issue is that creative subjects are often cut from the curriculum. But it’s in these lessons that children work together, discuss problems and reach solutions to put on a play or a concert. This helps prevent bullying.

Bullying isn’t a big deal it’s just something you have to deal with

The emotional harm also seems more acute too. In the Nineties we had kids who were sad or angry, disappointed and depressed, but we didn’t have many who self-harmed, who were anorexic or had post-traumatic stress disorder and severe panic attacks.

Today in-school bullying is often taken online outside school hours. Using social media bullying is more vicious, personal and damaging, yet at the same time more remote, impersonal, anonymous and safer for the bully.

As a charity that assists bullied children — rather than focusing on prevention — we attracted attention. Subsequently I won the Daily Mail’s Inspirational Woman of the Year in 2008.

Now we help about 160 children a year across the charity, rising at the rate of 10-12 every term or half-term.

Happily, Sophie is now preparing for her GCSEs. She says: ‘Someone once said to me, “bullying isn’t a big deal it’s just something you have to deal with”. That’s not true. Bullying destroys people and if it wasn’t for Red Balloon, I wouldn’t be where I am now.’

It’s time teachers stop turning their backs on girls like Sophie and confront bullying once and for all.